This week Ecovillage Findhorn has immersed ourselves in a Purpose Quest. We learned from 5 Inspirational Sources (see full inspirations here).

  • Whole Community Purpose
  • Strategic Framework
  • Global Ecovillage Network
  • Dorothy MacLean
  • Patrick Lewington

From these inspirations, we drafted 8 Potential Purpose Statements (see them here).  And from these we identified 5 Themes:

  1. Spiritual Community
  2. Connect with Intelligences of Nature
  3. Evolve and Support One Another
  4. Regeneration and Resilience
  5. Service to World

 While these interactions have inspired and woven and meshed our connections in community, I have been perplexed – even suffering? – about disconnections between community members and organizations. This reminded me to find my favourite Parker Palmer article: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community (…with a fourteenth thrown in for free). (Read the whole wisdom here). Palmer’s discoveries about intentional community can be summarized in this table – and now I see my suffering is necessary … I wonder who else might support me as we open to our larger reality?

Old Ways of Thinking About Community Palmer’s Ways of Honouring Community
Community is a goal. Community is a gift.
We achieve community through desire, design, and determination. We receive community by cultivating a capacity for connectedness through contemplation.
Community requires a feeling of intimacy. Community is not dependent on intimacy and must be expansive enough to include strangers, even enemies, as well as friends.
Community is a romantic garden of Eden. Community is a crucible for our inner refinement and must endure hard times.
Leadership is not needed in communities. Leadership creates “space” for human resourcefulness and creativity.
Suffering is bad and should be avoided. Suffering is a necessary stage in opening the heart to a larger reality.